136 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



garland of song begun by Constable, Shakespeare, and 

 other early poets. The first-named wrote the lines 



" Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 

 You haste away so soon, 

 As yet the early rising sun 

 Has not attained his noon." 



Keats's famous lines beginning, "A thing of beauty is 



a joy for ever/' proceed 



" In spite of all 



Some shape of beauty moves away the pale 

 From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 

 Trees old and young, spreading a shady boon 

 For simple sheep ; and such are Daffodils 

 With the green world they live in." 



The name Narcissus is scarcely less familiar than 

 that of Daffodil. It stands as the botanical name of 

 the whole genus with the bulk of amateurs, but florists 

 call only the Trumpet Narcissi Daffodils, and use 

 Narcissus for the rest of the family. They speak, for 

 instance, of the Poet's Narciss, not the Poet's Daffodil. 

 This, however, was a Daffodil with the old writers. It 

 is the "chequ'd and purple-ringed Daffodilly" of Ben 

 Jonson. Narcissus was the name of a vain youth who 

 is said to have been turned into this flower 



" That was a faire boy certaine, but a foole 

 To love himself; were there not maids enough?" 



Two Noble Kinsmen. 



Shelley writes of the flower under the classical name 



" Narcissus, the fairest among them all, 

 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 

 Till they die of their own dear loveliness." 



We may assume that the Rose of Sharon, mentioned 

 in the " Song of Solomon," was a Daffodil, although 

 some writers believe that it was a Rock Cistus, and may 

 quote the words of Mahomet : " He that has two cakes 

 of bread, let him sell one of them for some flower of 



